September 27, 2026
Indianola Presbyterian Church
“Maybe So, Maybe Not, We'll See”
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
September 27, 2026 Based on Genesis 39: 1-6a, 7, 9, 12, 17-23
There is an old Taoist parable from China about a farmer who owned a beautiful horse. One day, the horse ran away. The farmer's neighbors came to him and said, that's terrible. What awful luck.” And the farmer said, “Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.” A few days later, the horse came back. And it brought several wild horses with it. The neighbors came running again. “That's wonderful! What good luck!” And the farmer said, “Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.” The next day, the farmer's son was trying to tame one of the wild horses, and he was thrown from it and broke his leg.
The neighbors came again. “Oh, that's awful. What bad luck.” And the farmer said, “Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.” A few weeks later, the army came through the village conscripting young men to go to war. But because the farmer's son had a broken leg, they passed him by. The neighbors came again. “How fortunate! What good luck!” And the farmer said, “Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.”
You see how the story goes… Good news becomes bad news which becomes good news which becomes bad news. And through it all, the farmer refuses to decide too quickly what any particular moment eans. …“Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.”
I love that story, but I hate to admit, I am rarely like the farmer…Instead, I think I am much more like the neighbors. Maybe you feel that way too. We want to know what things mean. We want to know whether something is good or bad. We want to know whether we're winning or losing. We want to know whether God is blessing us or whether somehow we have missed the blessing. And perhaps most of all, we always want to know how the story is going to end.
But life rarely gives us that kind of absolute certainty. Life is rarely that simple. And neither is Joseph’s Story
If you were with us through the beginning of this series last week, you may remember that we talked about God's promise to Abram. God called Abram to leave the place he knew, to go to a place God would show him,
and God made him a promise: “I will bless you... and you will be a blessing.” And through Abram's family, God promised to bless all the families of the earth.
It is a beautiful idyllic promise.
But then Genesis takes a more realistic and honest turn. It spends the next several chapters telling us just how complicated it is for human beings to carry a promise like that. The human family that descended from Abram is not perfect. Far from it. There is jealousy and rivalry and deception. There are favored children and wounded children. There are parents who make terrible decisions. There are brothers who nearly kill their baby brother and then sell him into slavery. And that younger brother is Joseph, the center of our story today.
Joseph is seventeen years old when he receives the favor of his father. He blesses Joseph with a beautiful robe which seems like the greatest luck… Maybe so, maybe not… we’ll see
Because next his brothers become incredibly jealous of Joseph.. they strip off the beautiful robe his father had given him and throw him into a pit; they convince their father that Joseph is dead and then sell him to a caravan headed for Egypt.
Could his life get any worse? What bad luck…Maybe so, Maybe not… We’ll see
Now, in chapter 39, Joseph is in Egypt. He is no longer the favored son. He is enslaved. And yet somehow, Joseph's life seems to turn around.
He is purchased by a man named Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh. And Joseph does well. He works hard.
Potiphar notices. Joseph rises in responsibility. Eventually Potiphar puts Joseph in charge of his entire household.
And if we were continuing to read the story like the neighbors in that Chinese village, we might say:
“Look at that! Joseph's luck has finally changed. God is blessing him.” And the text actually seems to give us a reason to say that. Over and over again, Genesis says:
“The LORD was with Joseph.” The LORD was with Joseph. It is a beautiful sentence. That makes it seem like Joseph the blessing is Good luck… except the story isn't over.
Because Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph. Joseph refuses her. And when she doesn't get what she wants, she accuses Joseph of assaulting her, grabbing his robe as he runs away. She takes his robe and uses it as evidence against him, telling Potiphar and Joseph is thrown into prison. Just like that. Everything he had built disappears.
And if we were standing with those neighbors again, we might say: “what bad luck” “Well, I guess God isn't with Joseph anymore.”
But then Genesis says it. Again. “The LORD was with Joseph.” That's the sentence I want us to hold onto today.
Because the circumstances for Joseph have changed. But God has not. Joseph was a favored son. God was with him. Joseph was a slave. God was with him. Joseph became the manager of Potiphar's household. God was with him. Joseph was falsely accused. God was with him. Joseph was thrown into prison. God was with him.
The whole shape of Joseph's life keeps changing. But the presence of God does not. And I wonder how often we make the mistake of measuring God's presence by our circumstances.
When things are going well, we think, God must be with me. When the job works out. When we ace the test.
When our friends and family are doing well. When the business is growing. When the bills are paid. When the future seems to be opening up before us. We say, “God is good.”
And God is good.
But sometimes we subtly interpret that as something else: Things are good, therefore God is with me. And then the bottom drops out. A diagnosis. A divorce. A job that disappears. A loved one who’s struggling A season of life that feels more like survival than flourishing.
And suddenly we wonder: Where is God? Did I do something wrong? Did God leave? Did I somehow lose the blessing?
Joseph's story gives us a different way of seeing things. The blessing is not the absence of trouble. The blessing is not a life in which everything goes according to plan. The promise is not that nothing bad will happen to us.
The promise is something deeper. God is with us. In every up, and in every down. Even here. Even now.
Even in the chapter we would never have chosen. And I think that's part of what makes this story so important.
Because Genesis does not justify Joseph’s suffering and struggle. It doesn’t try to explain his setbacks as though they were necessary like some “Everything Happens for a Reason” bright siding.
It doesn't say that God needed Joseph to be falsely accused so that Joseph could eventually become second-in-command of Egypt. It doesn't tell us that God planned every terrible thing that happened to him.
Sometimes suffering is simply suffering that happens in life. Sometimes heartbreak is simply heartbreaking.
Sometimes we don't know why something happened. And faith does not require us to pretend that we do.
Faith can be much simpler than that. Faith can say:
I don't know what this means. I don't know where this is going. I don't know how this will turn out. But I believe I am not alone. I believe The LORD is with me.
And maybe that is part of what makes God's faithfulness “a long faithfulness.” Because God is not faithful only when we can recognize the blessing. God is faithful across the whole story. Joseph cannot see his whole story from the pit his brothers threw him into. Joseph cannot see his whole story from the prison cell.
Neither can we. And that is okay. Because the promise of God is not that we will always understand. The promise is that God will remain. There is another detail in the Joseph story that I love. It is easy to miss because it seems so small.
Clothing.
Joseph's story is marked by clothes. His father gives him the beautiful ornamental robe that marks him as the favored son. His brothers strip it from him when they sell him into slavery. Potiphar's wife grabs his garment when he runs away. Later in this story, when Joseph is brought before Pharaoh, he changes his clothes.
And eventually Pharaoh dresses him in fine linen and puts a gold chain around his neck.
And at the end of the story, a full circle moment, Joseph gifts garments to his brothers in a reconciling act.
It is almost as though Joseph's clothes become markers of all the different movements of his life.
Favored son. Slave. Household Manager. Prisoner. Leader. Forgiving brother.
And underneath all those changing identities is the one thing that remains true no matter what:
God is with Joseph. The clothes change. The circumstances change. The status changes. The titles change. The address changes. The future changes. Joseph changes. But God remains faithful.
And I believe that's true for us too. Our life will go on. It will have ups and it will have downs. We will wear different clothes in every chapter. We are students. Then graduates. Then professionals. Retirees.
People who are in love. Maybe we become spouses.. Parents… Caregivers. We become people who are beginning again. People who are learning something new about ourselves. We move into new homes. We leave old ones. We lose people we thought would always be there. We discover people we never expected to love.
Our bodies change. Our families change. Our communities change. Our dreams change. The clothing will change.
But underneath it all, there is the quiet steady refrain continues to echo:
The LORD is with you. The LORD is with you. The LORD is with you.
And maybe that is what we mean when we talk about a long faithfulness. Not that life will always be good. Not that every hardship has a secret purpose. Not that we can look at every terrible thing and say, “Well, I guess this was part of God's plan.” But that God's faithful love is longer than our circumstances. God's presence is longer than our understanding. God's promise is longer than any single chapter of our lives. Remember the promise God made to Abram last week:
“I will bless you, and you will be a blessing to every family on earth.” Joseph is part of that promise. And the remarkable thing is that Joseph doesn't know how. Sitting in prison, he can't see how his life could possibly be connected to God's promise.
But it is.
God's promise is still moving. It moves through generations. It moves through failures and betrayals. It moves through slavery and injustice. It moves through people who make terrible choices. It moves through people who do their best. It moves through people who can see only a tiny piece of the story. And that is us too.
We are part of a story we cannot see in full. We inherit a faith that began long before us. We carry promises that will outlive us. We do things whose consequences we may never know. We offer kindness to someone who may never tell us what it meant.
We teach a child something that they may not understand until thirty years from now. We tend a church whose future we cannot see. We plant trees whose shade we may never sit beneath. We make the world a little more hospitable, a little more just, a little more beautiful, trusting that someone else may one day inherit what we have tended. That is long faithfulness. It is faithfulness without the guarantee of seeing the whole result.
It is trusting that our lives matter even when we cannot see the whole picture.
And perhaps that is where the farmer's little refrain comes back to us. Maybe so, Maybe not, We’ll see.
We don't know what tomorrow will bring. We don't know which things we celebrate today will become difficult tomorrow. We don't know which disappointments will eventually open unexpected doors. We don't know how every story will end. But we can resist the temptation to declare the meaning of our lives too soon.
We can keep showing up. We can keep loving. We can keep doing what is faithful in the chapter we have been given. And we can trust that the God who was with Joseph in the palace is the same God who was with Joseph in the prison. The God who was with Abram when he first stepped onto the road is the God who stayed with this family through every generation that followed. And the God who has been faithful through all those generations is still here.
With us. In times of joy and in times of grief. In our certainty and in our questions. When the road opens before us and when we have no idea where the road is going. We may not know what comes next. Maybe it will be good, maybe it will be bad…
We'll see. But whatever comes next, may we be reminded that we never walk the road alone.
The LORD is with us.
And God’s long faithfulness will forever continue.
Amen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
*indicates stand if you are able
PRELUDE “God, Reveal Your Presence” arr. Marla Iyer
INTROIT "Make a Joyful Noise" Karle Erikson
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
One: This is the day that the Lord has made
All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
*CALL TO WORSHIP/OPENING PRAYER 59 “The Steadfast Love of the Lord” THE STEADFAST LOVE OF THE LORD
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION Ella Bryan
Faithful God, we confess that we measure your love by how our week went. When things go well, we are sure you are near. When things fall apart, we assume you have gone. We label moments too quickly, and we label people too quickly too. We believe the stories told by the powerful and dismiss the voices of those with less. We dress others in names they did not choose and forget that you see who they truly are. Forgive us. Slow our judgment and widen our trust that we might see your presence in the places we would never look for it. In the name of Jesus, who was with us in every season, we pray. Amen.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
*RESPONSE OF PRAISE 659 “Know That God Is Good” MUNGO NI MWEMA
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM “I Believe” Mark Miller
Sophia Haws, soloist
GODLY PLAY
Congregation: May God be with you there
Children: May God be with you here.
CILDREN’S RECESSIONALl 175 “Seek Ye First” vs. 1
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
SCRIPTURE Genesis 39: 1-6a, 7, 9, 12, 17-23 CEB
After Joseph had been taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelites, Potiphar an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh’s officials and the manager of his household, bought him from them.
As it turned out, God was with Joseph and things went very well with him. He ended up living in the home of his Egyptian master. His master recognized that God was with him, saw that God was working for good in everything he did. He became very fond of Joseph and made him his personal aide. He put him in charge of all his personal affairs, turning everything over to him. From that moment on, God blessed the home of the Egyptian—all because of Joseph. The blessing of God spread over everything he owned, at home and in the fields, and all Potiphar had to concern himself with was eating three meals a day.
Joseph was strikingly handsome. As time went on, his master’s wife became infatuated with Joseph and one day said, “Sleep with
me.” But he wouldn’t do it. He said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master doesn’t give a second thought to anything that goes on here—he’s put me in charge of everything he owns. He treats me as an equal. The only thing he hasn’t turned over to me is you, and rightly so, you’re his wife, after all! How could I violate his trust and sin against God?”
This went on for some time but on one of these days he came to the house to do his work and none of the household servants happened to be there. She grabbed him by his cloak, in a last ditch effort to assault him.
And Joseph turned and ran out of the house, leaving his coat in her hand.
She kept his coat right there until his master came home. She lied about what had happened. She said, “The Hebrew slave, the one you brought to us, came after me and tried to use me for his plaything. When I yelled and screamed, he left his coat with me and ran outside.”
When his master heard his wife’s story, he was furious. Joseph’s master took him and threw him into the jail where the king’s prisoners were locked up. But there in jail God was still with Joseph: He reached out in kindness to him; he put him on good terms with the head jailer. The head jailer put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners—he ended up managing the whole operation. The head jailer gave Joseph free rein, never even checked on him, because God was with him; whatever he did God made sure it worked out for the best.
One: Holy Wisdom
All: Holy Word
SERMON Rev Trip Porch
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
*HYMN 412 “God, Reveal Your Presence” ARNSBERG
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE followed by the Lord’s Prayer
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www.indianolapres.org/give
OFFERTORY “Trio No. 1” Josef Rheinberger
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 748 “Go With Us, Lord” TALLIS’ CANON
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
Faithful God, you did not leave Joseph when his circumstances changed, and you do not leave us. Receive these gifts as our grateful response to your steady love. Use them to carry your presence into places that feel forgotten. Amen.
*HYMN 744 “Arise Your Light Has Come” FESTAL SONG
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE & BENEDICTION
BENEDICTION RESPONSE "The Grace of Our Lord Jesus" James A. Brown Jr.
arr. K. Lee Scott
POSTLUDE “Arise, Your Light Has Come” arr. Pamela M. Robertson